A program
that brings after-school activities and social services to disadvantaged students in Multnomah County would add 10 campuses in 2014-15, under a plan announced Friday by County Chair Marissa Madrigal.

For the first time ever, Multnomah County and Portland city
government would also dedicate permanent funding to every school in the SUN Community Schools
program.

The city-county initiative to pump $1.5 million into the programs would bring Portland Public Schools and other districts in the county to a total of 80 SUN schools serving 24,000 students.

Madrigal announced the proposal during her State of the County address at the Portland City Club.

SUN Schools are essentially in-school social service hubs,
offering everything from food pantries to academic support for families in
schools with high poverty rates.

Madrigal said in the fiscal year that begins in July, she and
Portland Mayor Charlie Hales are committed to providing permanent funding for 10 SUN schools
that previously were funded with one-time-only money. They'll also pay to establish 10 more SUN
schools.

The City Council and County Board of Commissioners must sign off on the
funding in their budget considerations for the deal to go through. If they do, SUN schools will be established in the David Douglas School District's Ventura
Park Elementary, Cherry Park Elementary and West Powellhurst Elementary. In the Reynolds School District, Magaret Scott Elementary,
Salish Ponds Elementary, Woodland Elementary and Reynolds High will launch the
program. Parkrose Middle School and Portland's Beach School and Vestal School
will round out the list.

Madrigal's SUN Schools message was part of a broader announcement
Friday that the city and county have begun to streamline the division of
responsibility for shared services, from mental health and homelessness to animal
code enforcement.

She and Hales began discussing the
issue months ago and plan to continue talks as budget season draws
nearer. Hales was in the audience Friday during Madrigal's address and spoke
with The Oregonian afterward about the SUN Schools announcement.

"This isn't just a one-year handshake between the mayor and
chair," he said.

The streamlined approach solidifies permanent funding for
several programs that, in the past, have relied upon one-time gives that
weren't guaranteed from year to year.

"Instead of re-hashing last year's city/county budget
drama-rama, we would sit together and try to make sense of some things in the
city and county budgets," Madrigal said during her speech. "We agreed on some
principles up front – including the idea that while it might make business
sense for the city or county to be solely responsible for some things, there
were other areas where a legacy of mutual investment has maximized the benefit
to the entire community."

The tweaks are relatively minor in the scope of the two
entities' massive budgets. You won't find an answer to the big question of who
should take sole ownership of the bridges, or whether one entity should oversee
all homelessness services. However, the announcements signal the start of a
larger conversation about how to more clearly divide the line between county
and city services. That conversation, Madrigal and Hales said, will continue.

"It would be great to take on all the city-county issues," Hales said. "It would be great to take on bridges and the river patrol, and the fire boats and all those overlapping services, but we made a tactical decision to say, let’s take on a portion of these and that ones where there's been the most uncertainty about their continuation."

Other key announcements from Madrigal's speech:

The city and county will both help pay for rent assistance
to prevent homelessness. Previously, the county footed the entire $1.5 million bill for short-term rent assistance.

The county will take over funding for the Crisis Assessment
and Treatment Center, a facility for people experiencing mental health crises,
whose $1.2 million budget was formerly split between the city and county.

The city will be responsible for funding the Hooper
Sobering Station, a $1.3 million operation run by Central City Concern. In past years, both entities
have shared the sobering station's cost.

The county will also take over sole funding responsibility
for senior centers while bumping the total budget from $565,000 to $600,000.

The city will begin paying for enforcement of its
animal code. Previously, the county paid the $117,000 expense for that duty as part of a decades-old
agreement.

Madrigal was in the unusual position of presenting the county's yearly address
only five months into her term as an unelected chairwoman, with only months to
go before a new permanent chair replaces her.

After delivering the speech Friday, Madrigal said she hopes her
successor will continue the conversation she and Hales have begun.

"The problems we have are really complex, and the only way
to solve them is working together," she said.